Prestige, Security & Transparency

[Fiery Rain]

I'm a firm believer that everything (systemic-wise) that makes player directly calculate the odds dramatically improves overall experience, since it completely eliminates the "let's click this & that, guess something is probably improved, moving on" way of thinking.

Specifically, it would be nice if we finally saw a detailed breakdown on Security & Prestige ratings. Right now, both numbers are vague to the extreme - you see them rise, sure, but you don't actually know what they exactly do except "uh, the more the better, I guess". When you upgrade both ratings, can you actually say with confidence you know exactly what will change?

Now, the whole system is built on probabilities (I think so, at least). Merchants may or may not arrive at the castle, bandits may or may not attack, so showing the percentage (there s a 56% probability Very Fearsome Enemy will attack, JUST SO YOU KNOW!!!) would be silly, of course. But I think instead of that, they could change the outcome display. If you increase Prestige, for example, the game will show you the exact number of taxes and money collected (bandits will take some of it, but increasing the security rating, conversely, will decrease this to a certain threshold, within reason).

With Security, however, it's noticeably harder, since again, all is based on a probabilities and there's not much you can do to correctly display this without looking too gamey and unnatural.

Theory (it's hard to do so yeah, not that it's possible, but still): I guess you can attach two statuses to keep. One displays potential threat level. Safe--Dangerous and something in-between. Another displays keep "protection" status. Secured--Dilapidated and something in-between. This way the player directly sees the effect of Security rating instead of "uh, now that I raised it to 40, am I finally safe?".

Maybe even simpler. When number crosses the certain threshold, the icon changes its background, from red to yellow to green or something. Although this color solution carries some inherent drawbacks, I suppose - for one, red color implies some urgency and/or emergency when there isn't one, since stronghold maintenance in PoE is fairly subdued and calm affair. So this will probably irritate some players. The palette could be different - from gray to green to golden, for example.

Your thoughts/suggestions? If you were to increase mechanic transparency of these statuses, how would you do it? Sorry for some choppy English.

[evilcat]

Tooltip? Appearing text box with info "Each Prestige points provide 50 gold, and increase chance of mission apperance by 5%/day" and "Each security point secures 50gold from taxes from filthy robbers and increase chance of guest spawning by 1%/day" or something like that.

 

But honestly... i dont care. At this point when WM2 is near, and Stronghold is no way key feature and gold from Stronghold isnt really important it is all about to just leave stronghold in state which dont break anything else. Which means:

- remove monster raiding, or increase timer to something like 7 days. It sucks when doing durgan battery monster spawn. Being in middle of awesome duneon why would i care to run back to fight some literally random mobs? Monster raids not only have zero value, but bring it to negative.

 

Since game 1 is slowly fading to the conclusion i would just call it a day with stronghold. Add some stroyquest, that seems to be greatest complain, and focus on quests in whitemarch, or new talents.

 

With PoE2 start over with completly new aproach.

[Heijoushin]

As the EvilCat has said, we've all given up on the stronghold already, but for argument's sake...

No, I feel quite the opposite. I don't even want to see "security" and "prestige" numbers anywhere. That's what makes the stronghold feel like a bad cellphone game.

I think the best way to make the stronghold feel more organic would be to add some more memorable NPCs. The stronghold is boring because, apart from bland shopkeepers with no personality... there's no one living there but a talking chair!
And each "room" should have a clear purpose, preferably one who can interact with. 

Edited January 15, 2016 by Heijoushin

[Raven Darkholme]

I raise my prestige for raising the chance that Azurro appears, which seems to start around 30 prestige.

Security is totally useless, so I manually resolve my attacks, even whe3n I solo...

[gogocactus]

I like the suggestion regarding the outcome display, but not so much status displays. I would indeed care much less about the random probability of an enemy raid if it would be tied to short story lines and if, besides the combat, the stronghold would offer more memorable quests, characters and a more lively atmosphere in general.

 

Overall, I would love to see a form of a stronghold (preferably a smaller enclosed area wherein each room has a purpose, such as a pirate ship) return in PoE II, including (semi) randomised events and a stronghold tied dungeon area, provided the stronghold would offer interesting characters and quest lines.

Edited January 15, 2016 by gogocactus

[HawkSoft]

A good lord or steward would have a good idea of how make a specific improvement should benefit security as it's (was) a basic part of the job, bit like a ship's captain being able to steer a ship so I'm OK with this being expressed as numbers. I don't want to see exact probabilities for the benefits though, those wouldn't have been calculable and lead me to try and play the system rather than the game.

 

One thing that might be possible within the scope of a patch would be to have *echoes* of all the gold NPC you interact with appear in the stronghold, I admit this isn't a *best* solution but it would add a bit of life to the place without requiring too much work by the devs.

[wanderon]

I don't see a real need for a comprehensive breakdown of security and prestige levels - as said above it seems to lead the player to play the system rather than the game - after all it is an RP  - G so I think a general description of what one might expect to gain/lose is sufficient altho I definitely would like to see more detailed and interesting encounters related to the stronghold and more regular (interesting) NPCs that reside or arrive or can be recruited - each with their own little storyline/quest.